de_eekhoorn (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
de_eekhoorn) wrote2024-06-02 06:33 pm
de_eekhoorn) wrote2024-06-02 06:33 pm
Word of the day
The word of the day over here is the German Kauderwelsch, which the internet tells me means ‘an unintelligible mixture of various languages’, or, from there, any gibberish.
This word I had known only as its Dutch cognate koeterwaals, n., meaning 1. ununderstandable nonsense language, 2. a foreign language not understood by the speaker. This word is of course verbed, as koeterwaalsen, v., the act of speaking, imperfectly but enthusiastically, a language foreign to the speaker but not to the interlocutor, as e.g. to the owner of the campground while on summer vacation.
I had always expected this word to be a construction of the type ‘pig Latin’, with the ‘waals’ part referring to French, as in the Wallon region of Belgium. I had also expected it to be an only-in-Dutch word with no cognates in other languages.
But no, it also exists in German! Kauderwelsch! Further etymological researches will be needed.
[The same source has also already provided me with versteigen, v., the act of going in the wrong direction while climbing a mountain. Stay tuned.]
This word I had known only as its Dutch cognate koeterwaals, n., meaning 1. ununderstandable nonsense language, 2. a foreign language not understood by the speaker. This word is of course verbed, as koeterwaalsen, v., the act of speaking, imperfectly but enthusiastically, a language foreign to the speaker but not to the interlocutor, as e.g. to the owner of the campground while on summer vacation.
I had always expected this word to be a construction of the type ‘pig Latin’, with the ‘waals’ part referring to French, as in the Wallon region of Belgium. I had also expected it to be an only-in-Dutch word with no cognates in other languages.
But no, it also exists in German! Kauderwelsch! Further etymological researches will be needed.
[The same source has also already provided me with versteigen, v., the act of going in the wrong direction while climbing a mountain. Stay tuned.]
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You remind me that I actually did find out a bit more about the etymology - soon...